


Knowing

by soteriophobe



Category: White Collar
Genre: Disasters, Grief/Mourning, Male Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-08
Updated: 2012-07-08
Packaged: 2017-11-09 10:10:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/454307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soteriophobe/pseuds/soteriophobe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post "Judgment Day" AU. Neal flees New York, but something happens to his plane. Peter tries to put things back together, in the aftermath.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Knowing

**Author's Note:**

> Written in response to [this awesome prompt](http://collarcorner.livejournal.com/16150.html?thread=433430#t433430) at LJ's collarcorner. Warnings for major character death, description of frightening scenarios, and spoilers for the S3 finale. 
> 
> Huge, enormous hugs and adulation to my wonderful beta, Sholio, who helped me immensely (especially with the ending).

 

*

 

 

**_Vermont Plane Crash Kills 155_**

**__** _Sat, March 25 2012_

___By Dee Young_

___VERMONT (Reuters) – A commercial aircraft, JetBlue Airlines flight B6175, crashed into a rural area in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom on Thursday. There were no survivors._

_President Obama expressed his grief and sympathy for the families of the victims in a speech this morning, informing the public that there is no suspicion of terrorist involvement in the crash at this time. He has ordered an investigation into the incident._

_The Airbus A320 was making a routine trip from New York’s John F. Kennedy International airport to Edmonton International Airport in Canada, when it went down over a wooded area of Caledonia County at approximately 5:22 pm EST. The plane burst into flames on impact, at which time local firefighters rushed to the scene of the crash._

_Among the dead are former Olympic shotput champion, Eve Hornung; C.F.O. of Alumia Software Corporation, Darren Windholz; and Broadway choreographer Hugh Edling._

_A spokesman for the airline said that they were still investigating the crash, but that there was an early suspicion that malfunction of vertical stabilizer components may have played a part, based on a pattern of similar Airbus crashes in recent years._

**_“LIKE IT JUST FELL OUT OF THE AIR”_ **

_“I heard a huge explosion, and at first I thought a gas canister had gone off,” said local schoolteacher Alana Kist, who was at home, watching television with her husband, at the time of the crash._

_“Then there were some more explosions, and we ran out onto the porch. We could see smoke billowing up out of the woods, and we called 911 right away.”_

_High school senior Mallory Glessner was driving on Route 18, a nearby highway, moments before the crash._

_“There was this huge banging sound in the sky, and I pulled over just in time to see the plane spinning through the sky, then diving nose-down into the forest. It was like it just fell out of the air. It was horrible.”_

_It took firefighters several hours to extinguish brushfires that had started in association with the explosion of engine parts. Those first on the scene reported that the aircraft had broken into several pieces during its descent._

_National Transportation Safety Board officials have stated that recovery and identification of passengers and crew is of upmost priority, and that subsequent investigation – including examination of crucial mechanical parts and the flight data recorder - should provide essential clues as to the cause of the crash._

_“We are shocked and distressed at the sudden and unexpected loss of life that this accident has caused, and intend on participating fully in the NTSB investigation,” said a spokesman for the airline, on Friday._

 

*

 

In hindsight, Peter realizes that he knew what had happened the moment that he saw the news reports in his inbox, on the television, in the papers. Talk of the crash was everywhere that first weekend and whenever he was drawn into a conversation about it, he couldn’t help but feel a sinking, sick sensation in his stomach and chest and every one of his limbs.

He'd tried to brush it off, initially. After all, in those first few days after Neal ran (after he gave Neal the signal to run), _everything_ felt wrong and strange and nauseating. His life was falling apart. His former mentor was calling him a dirty agent; his career – his identity – was on the line; and his best friend and partner was a wanted fugitive, had fled to god-only-knows-where. Peter was somehow unsurprised that planes were falling out of the sky, would not have been surprised if the sun stopped shining and the earth stopped turning.

He couldn’t brush it off, though, couldn’t shake that feeling. He knew – he just knew _-_ that there was something very, very wrong.

It wasn’t until the Sunday after the crash, however, that he could do so much as admit it to himself. He was at home, in his office upstairs, trying to finish paperwork or look at case files but all he was really doing was staring out the window and letting his mind wander, letting his stomach ache. When he finally took a break, went downstairs to brew some coffee, Elizabeth was watching a special report on the crash.

She hadn't even glanced up at him as he passed her. Perched on the edge of the couch, her eyes full of tears and fixed on the screen, she'd said: “It’s so _sad_.”

“Turn that crap off,” he'd snapped back, his voice harsh and barely recognizable. Then he'd felt his knees weaken, all the blood rushing away from his head, and he dropped abruptly into a seat at the dining table, afraid he was going to pass out.

Elizabeth had looked up at him, affronted – and then concerned, as she hit the mute button and quickly crossed the room to crouch in front of him, feel his forehead, look into his face. Her brow furrowed.

“Hon?”

He sat staring into space for a moment, scatterbrained, trying to articulate the sudden heavy _knowing_ in his bones; trying to say out-loud what he had dared not think until now.

“Neal,” he finally said, his voice sounding rough, “I-…got a bad feeling. The plane crash-…it was the same day he ran, the timeframe fits-…”

He'd trailed off, unable to go on, but Elizabeth understood, her own eyes widening and flicking back toward the television for a moment.

“Oh, Peter-…no. I mean-…Neal wouldn’t have been on a plane to _Canada_. He would’ve gone straight to…Europe, or Australia, or Asia. He’s not a Canada kind of person.”

Peter had nodded, but remained silent. He couldn’t put a voice to his suspicions then – that Neal and Mozzie would have taken the longest, most complicated route out of the United States that they could. That they would travel like they were shirking a tail. Peter had seen Neal do it before, when he was chasing him. Neal would fly to Canada, double back to Oregon, take a trip to Iceland, travel down through Germany – and only then head toward his final destination. Neal wasn’t stupid enough to get on the first plane heading to a country of his choice, he would know that those flights were the first ones the FBI investigated; that every passenger on those flights would be tracked down and interviewed in an effort to figure out Neal’s new alias.

This is what Peter had suspected, but he'd still hoped that he was wrong. So he didn’t say anything to El, irrationally afraid that voicing his fears would somehow make them true. He did call the airline the next day, though, request the passenger manifest. He still had his badge (for the time being), all he had to do was wave his authority in their faces and they faxed the document right over.

He wasn’t sure exactly what to look for – he doubted that Neal would be travelling under any name that he knew about. The sudden realization that he might never know if Neal was alive or dead had gripped him for a moment, a cold hand around his throat, and he'd wondered if knowing could possibly be as bad as forever questioning.

Then he saw the name: _Victor Moreau_ , and he had his answer. Knowing was worse.

Even as he had rolled his eyes at the name, wondering why Neal would be stupid enough to use an alias that could so easily be tracked back to Kate, he suddenly realized that all of the air had gone out of the room and he doubled over in his desk chair, gasping for breath. His hands shook so wildly that the manifest went fluttering to the floor, all the sounds around him fading to a low buzzing roar.

He didn’t come back to himself until he realized that Jones was standing in the doorway to his office, saying his name again and again with increasing volume, expression quizzical and concerned. Taking a deep breath and picking up the paper from the floor, he'd made an attempt to set his jaw and clear his throat, look moderately composed in front of his colleague.

“Jones - get me Joe Harding at the NTSB. Tell him I need access to the Vermont crash site.”

He'd ignored the other agent’s puzzled look, turning to his computer and attempting to look busy as he swallowed down panic. He told himself that he only suspected, that there was no evidence, that Victor Moreau might just be some unlucky schmuck with an eerily familiar name.

He was lying to himself, though. A lie to keep him sane, because the truth was still unfathomable.  

 

*

 

He drives to Vermont. It takes almost seven hours, but he can’t bring himself to travel by air, given…everything.

The first thing he notices about the crash site is the smell - it’s overwhelming. Wet earth and burned wood and fuel; the vague unsettling scent of barbecued meat. He wouldn’t even know that the devastation here was _caused_ by a plane, if not for the tail end of the craft looming over him, resting on its side. It’s still intact, the only part of the plane that didn’t burn. The remainder of the plane is…disintegrated, a scorched clearing littered with twisted metal and debris – bags, clothing, paper, airline safety cards. As he walks across the muddy ground, he notices a wristwatch by his shoe, marked with a tiny yellow flag.

He doesn’t linger long. His contact on the NTSB Go Team gives him a grim nod in greeting, leads him toward the white tent where the bodies are being stored. The man offers Peter a pair of latex gloves and a surgical mask before they enter, pulling his own mask from around his neck and securing it over his mouth and nose. Peter is tempted to refuse, but thinks better of it and dons the protection.

There’s rows and rows of bright orange body bags in the tent, glowing against the damp darkness of the ground like embers. Even through the mask, the smell in the small space is unbelievable and even Peter, with his strong stomach, struggles not to gag.

He nods to his contact to give him a moment. After some convulsive swallowing, he walks along the row of body bags – stopping when he reaches the bags marked “ _24E_ ” and “ _24F_ ”. Victor Moreau sat in 24F. Someone named “Robert Furlow” sat in 24E. They were only one row from the back of the plane, two of the first dozen bodies retrieved from the unexploded tail end. Moreau was found still buckled into his seat.

Peter pauses a moment, pinches the bridge of his nose, closes his eyes.

He doesn’t want to do this. He has no hard evidence, yet, that Neal or Mozzie were even on this plane. He could turn around, walk out of the tent, never confirm his suspicions. Tell himself that Neal got away, is living somewhere warm and bright, that he and Mozzie are drinking wine and playing chess and bickering. Tell himself that they’re breathing, that their hearts are beating. Tell himself that they’re far away from this horrible place.

He could walk away, but he doesn’t. Instead he crouches down and zips open Furlow’s body bag. He has to know.

All that greets him is gore – it could be raw meat, if not for the ripped clothing, the recognizable body parts that don’t seem to be attached to anything. It overwhelms Peter’s senses, and he quickly zips the bag closed again, rocking back on his heels and pressing a fist to his covered mouth, willing back the wave of nausea that breaks over him.

There’s no way to know if that was Mozzie – he can’t bring himself to look at the body again, study the clothing, search the pockets for a wallet or passport. Peter almost can’t bear to open Victor Moreau’s body bag, afraid he’ll find the same kind of mess, that he’ll be forced to wait for DNA or dental records before he’ll know if his friend is in there. He aborts his reach for the zipper three times – the fourth time, he manages to open the bag.

The first thing he sees is a mess of thick brown hair, and then there’s no more doubt to hide behind, no more ambiguity. He knows - remembers too late that knowing is worse. Knowing is so much worse.

Neal is strangely intact, though Peter doesn’t dare unzip the bag enough to reveal anything more than the kid’s shoulders. There’s a mottle of abrasions and dark purple bruises along one side of Neal’s face, but the other side is almost unmarred – a cut over the brow and a ghostly pallor, but nothing more. Peter could almost convince himself that Neal is sleeping – his face is slackened peacefully, lashes resting on his cheeks, lips parted slightly.

It’s too much. Peter barely manages to get the body bag closed before he rushes out of the tent. Ripping the mask off his face, he staggers over to a tree and holds onto it as he retches and retches, unable to get that _smell_ out of his nose or wipe away the sight burned into his eyes.

When his stomach finally stops clenching and he’s thrown up everything he can, he rests his clammy forehead against the tree, taking deep gulps of cold air and letting his eyes slide closed.

His source told him that the crash was likely a result of the vertical stabilizer breaking off. He knows enough about physics – learned enough about airline disasters at Quantico – to imagine what happened.

The passengers and crew, wouldn’t have known anything was wrong until it was too late. He can imagine Neal, sitting beside Mozzie – and the other man, Robert Furlow, had to be Mozzie, Peter can’t imagine the two splitting up. Peter supposes that Mozzie was dozing, Neal staring out the window as he flew away from New York. Perhaps convinced that the worst had just happened, perhaps mourning the life that he’d left behind. That Kramer had forced him to leave behind. That Peter had told him to leave behind.

And then there would have been a series of loud banging noises – maybe two, maybe three – as the stabilizer was ripped from the tail of the aircraft. That would have been all the warning anyone got, before the plane started to shake.

The turbulence would have been violent as the pilots tried to keep the plane in the air. People would have been bouncing up out of their seats, hitting their heads. The overhead compartments would have burst open, dumping luggage into the aisles. The main cabin power would have gone out, plunging the passengers into darkness; the only illumination coming from the ultimately useless lighted pathways on the floor. The oxygen masks would have dropped from the ceiling panels. There would have been loud creaking and groaning coming from the walls of the craft, as the fuselage struggled to hold together.

Someone on the plane would have started screaming, and soon after everyone would have been screaming. The children onboard would be crying, perhaps some of the adults too. Mass panic would break out as people desperately groped for their oxygen masks in the darkness, struggled to pull them over their heads.

What would Neal have done? Peter can’t see him screaming – or crying. In his mind’s eye, Peter can see Neal’s wide blue eyes searching the cabin for any way out, his instinct as an escape artist kicking in instead of panic. The kid probably spent a good portion of his final moments wishing he’d brought a parachute, or trying to figure out how he could rig one. When Neal eventually realized that he and Mozzie were trapped, he would have paled – perhaps leaned back in his seat, gripped the armrests tightly. Perhaps he tried to calm a less composed Mozzie, or pulled the smaller man out of the way before he was hit by a falling backpack. Both of them would have put on their masks the minute they dropped – both were educated enough to know what happens when a cabin depressurizes, how quickly the air runs out.

As the pilots lost control of the plane, it would have gone into a Dutch roll and spun around sideways like a top, before finally heading nose-down toward the ground. Pieces would have started to shear off the plane – a wing, the engines, some flaps. Accounting for the speed of the fall and the weight of the plane, it would have been one or two minutes before the plane hit the ground. It would have felt like a lifetime, for anyone onboard.

Inside the cabin: chaos. Dark and loud and terrifying, things and people flying everywhere – everything not belted in or bolted on floating up and crashing down and then sliding toward the front of the plane. Papers whipping into the air and hitting passengers in the face, paperbacks blowing around like autumn leaves. People screaming and crying, trying to hold each other, trying to say muffled goodbyes through their masks – or pulling their masks off to speak, passing out before they can say a word. Strangers reaching across the aisle to hold hands. Did Neal take Mozzie’s hand, vice versa? Did they try to say anything to each other? Or did they just exchange glances, silent goodbyes? Did they even understand that they weren't going to survive – or did Neal, at least, feel like luck might still be on his side?

They probably would have been awake and aware the entire way down - or at least until the tail end of the fuselage broke away, went spiralling through the air. They would have lost consciousness once they separated from the rest of the plane - and when they landed, the inertia of the impact would have splattered their remarkable brains against the inside of their skulls, killing them instantly. Mozzie, he knows, was jolted out of his seat as the tail landed – fell into the mess of wreckage below. Neal remained strapped into his seat on the skyward aspect of the wreck, his seatbelt in a death grip around his waist and body half-supported by the armrest. He was found with his head and limbs dangling down, the laws of gravity trying and failing to drag him toward the ground. Peter almost let out an insane laugh at the thought of it – there wasn’t a law that Caffrey wasn’t determined to break, even in death.

The tail hit the ground – followed by the nose, the rest of the fuselage. Some of the parts, soaked with volatile jet fuel, exploded. And then…nothing. Sirens and burning trees.

Peter is so engrossed in his vision that he almost forgets where he is – almost feels like he was on the plane with his partner, went through the crash, died alongside him. Peter _feels_ dead, his chest seems hollow and still.

But he comes back to himself when his NTSB contact enters his line of sight; offers a sympathetic frown, a stick of chewing gum. Peter straightens, takes it, wipes his mouth on the back of his sleeve. He’ll never wear this suit again, anyhow.

Putting the gum in his mouth and ignoring the continued rumble of his stomach, he gives his contact a business card and offers a positive ID on Neal and a tentative ID on Mozzie. He instructs the man to send both bodies to the Quantico lab for further investigation, for burial arrangements. Thanks his contact for the help.

And then, ignoring the nagging thought that he shouldn’t drive in his current state, he gets in his car and speeds away. He was meant to stay in town overnight, but he drives the full seven hours back to Manhattan instead – only stops for gas, in a rush to get home. He doesn’t want to spend another minute within 100 miles of that godforsaken patch of woods.

 

*

 

When he walks through the door, he can hear Elizabeth say his name right away – but he doesn’t stop, walks straight up-the-stairs and down-the-hall and into-the-bedroom and into-the-bathroom. He could make the trip with his eyes closed, he knows it so well.

In the bathroom, he reaches into the shower and roughly twists the hot water faucet, stepping under the spray fully clothed and leaning heavily against the wall, palms against the tile. The water feels near-scalding, and he sighs in relief as it soaks his hair and clothes, seems to scour away all of the horror and death that he’s coated in. 

Elizabeth is in the room in moments – she’s followed him, she keeps saying his name, she sounds upset. He wants to answer her, but he can’t, he can't say anything. It’s not until she steps into the shower herself – also clothed, gasping at the heat that rains down on her and adjusting the temperature of the water – that he can bring himself to move.

She places her hands against his cheeks and forces him to meet her eyes. They are wide, and look frightened.

“It was them?” she asks, but it’s not really a question. Peter manages to nod, once, and then he wraps his arms around her.

She starts to cry – though whether she’s crying for his sake, or for Neal and Mozzie, he isn’t sure. He feels like he ought to do the same, but he can’t seem to do anything but hold her and stare at a cracked tile on the wall that he’s been meaning to replace, for months now. He needs to get on top of these things.

The two of them stand there, sopping and still, for what feels like a long time.

 

*

 

Later, Peter is drier and cleaner and wearing fresh clothes – but that _smell_ , it’s still there, he can’t seem to get rid of it. Elizabeth tries to coax him into eating something, but he just shakes his head. He must still look pretty green, because she doesn’t push the issue.

She encourages him to lie down, and she curls in next to him with her head on his chest; he can’t help but feel that she’s listening to his heartbeat, finding solace in the sound. Death has a way of making everything feel fragile and temporary. He stares up at the ceiling. Hours of silence seem to pass, before he finally speaks:

“I told him to run, El. I gave him the signal to run. If he’d _stayed_ -…if he’d stayed in New York, he’d still be alive. They both would.”

“You did the right thing, Peter. Nobody could have predicted this. None of this is your fault.”

She sounds so sure. He wishes that he was. 

 

*

 

For all the times that Neal put his life on the line for a case, for the Bureau, Peter thinks that the least the FBI owes him is the same kind of funeral that they would give any agent – an American flag, guard of honor, and so forth. Neal wasn’t an agent, however – at the time of his death, in fact, he was a fugitive – so he is instead given a short graveside service at the taxpayer’s expense. Peter is tempted to pay for the funeral himself, go for something more grand – but at the last minute, declines to do so. He realizes that he wants to pay his respects to _Neal_ – the brilliant, kind, and brave kid who lived in the charming, extravagant _Caffrey_ shell. He doesn’t want to honor the con in Neal Caffrey, he wants to honor the man. 

So he leaves Neal’s funeral as it is, spends his money making sure that Mozzie is given a decent burial as well.

The services are both surprisingly well-populated, especially Mozzie’s. Along with June, Sara, and about a dozen FBI agents and their spouses, there’s a motley assortment of nervous-looking mourners who Peter is sure he has never met, but who he may or may not have seen on “Wanted” posters. He almost grins at the oddity of the situation – the crème-de-la-crème of both the federal police and the criminal underworld attending the same event – but he isn’t really in a smiling mood.

Instead, he stands at Neal's graveside and stares down at the casket long after the funeral comes to an end, long after Diana puts a hand on his shoulder and Jones slaps him on the back, long after the sun begins to sink below the horizon. Eventually Elizabeth appears beside him, taking his arm and guiding him away.

 

*

 

After the funeral, Hughes declares the “Caffrey Situation” a closed case, sends Kramer back to Washington, closes the inquest into Peter’s behavior leading up to Neal’s escape. Peter is ordered to pack up Neal’s desk that afternoon, have it ready for an incoming probie. Peter places most of the stuff into boxes, but returns Neal's tie collection to June. He places the bust of Socrates on the far corner of his desk, next to his picture of El.

He sees Kramer in a hallway once, before the agent departs. Kramer attempts to talk to him, but Peter doesn’t even break stride. Refuses to meet the man’s eyes.

He finds himself becoming increasingly obsessed with finding someone to blame for Neal’s untimely demise. It doesn’t seem right, in his world of good guys and bad guys and convictions and acquittals, that planes should be allowed to just… _crash_ , like that. It can’t be totally random, the world can’t be that chaotic. It must be _someone’s_ fault.

So, whereas he’s spent the last year sitting up at night to watch Neal’s tracking data or look over the U-Boat manifest for the fiftieth time, he now forsakes sleep to Google past airbus crashes, watch documentaries, read accident reports. He tries to figure out how a plane that’s supposed to fly safely manages to do anything but. He finds a disturbing pattern of similar plane crashes, in which the vertical stabilizer of the airbus has torn off in strong winds. He’s three drafts into an angry letter to the French manufacturer before he realizes that he sounds even crazier than the kooks on the internet, who insist that commercial plane crashes are a result of shots fired from weaponized satellites orbiting Earth. Besides, informing the manufacturer of stuff like that is the NTSB’s job.

With that avenue of investigation exhausted, his focus turns to why Neal was on the plane in the first place. After all, if Neal had never boarded, he’d be fine. Peter finds himself spending hours locked inside his head, mentally chewing out a number of people. Kramer, for backing Neal into a corner; Kate, for being stupid enough to write Neal the encoded letters that would eventually be his downfall; even Mozzie, for dragging Neal into the whole Nazi treasure debacle, and forcing Peter to call in Kramer in the first place. 

Ultimately, however, Peter can trace every path that lead to his friend's death back to one person: himself. He was the one who agreed to the consultant gig that got Neal out of prison. He was the one who cut Neal enough slack that he was allowed to consort with criminals, get wrapped up in Mozzie’s final revenge against Adler. He was the one who refused to stop looking for the Nazi treasure, even after it could easily have been dismissed as destroyed. He was the one who brought Kramer in, to “help” him, and mistakenly put his trust in the elder agent. And again – most damningly – Peter was the one who signaled to Neal that he should run, get out of New York. Peter was directly responsible for Neal getting on that plane.

Thus, all the intensity of Peter’s anger and grief has nowhere to turn but inward, like a black hole collapsing in on itself. He pulls the blame around himself like a warm jacket, allows it to settle on his shoulders, and he can’t seem to shrug it off.

 

*

 

Life goes on - everything goes back to normal (whatever that means) – but Peter is plagued by dreams.

He has the occasional traumatic dream, of course, in which he’s sitting beside Neal on the plane and trying to warn him about what’s going to happen; or in which Neal is screaming at him, furious that Peter has cut his life short. The worst dreams, however, aren’t the nightmares – they’re the happy ones.

These are the dreams that he has almost every night – the dreams in which life is what it used to be. Dreams in which he and Neal discuss a perp over Elizabeth’s meatloaf, or bicker during a stakeout. Dreams in which he drinks beer in Neal’s apartment, or banters with his CI during a team meeting.

Awaking from these dreams is never a matter of sitting up in bed with a gasp. Instead it involves a slow, groggy return to consciousness; a sense of confusion about where he is and what the date is; and then the sudden, crushing memory of everything that’s happened since the crash. The replay of the disaster in his mind. The knowledge that Neal isn’t alive, anymore. The heavy grief that comes with missing his friend.

There are weeks where he awakens every morning to this. Sometimes, it’s more than he can take. Eventually, he just…shuts down – can feel his heart snap closed, one day, like a bear trap. After that, he doesn’t dream anymore.

 

*

 

Twelve months pass, and the crash slowly drops out of the news, story by story. One winter weekend, when Elizabeth is at her sister’s place, Peter is cleaning the already-clean house, desperate for something to do. While emptying a junk drawer in the dining room, he finds one of Neal’s yellow origami flowers.

It’s tucked in the back corner, only visible when he pulls the entire drawer out of the buffet. He dares not touch it at first, afraid that it might crumble into dust or disappear. Afraid that it’s a hallucination in the first place. 

Eventually, though, he notices a grey imprint on the paper – something written on it, text concealed inside – and he forces himself to set the drawer down and pluck the flower from its hiding place.

His heart beats faster - Neal used these things to send messages. Does this one contain a message for Peter? His mind whirs with possibility. It could be the location of something Neal stole; or, god, maybe Neal even faked his death. Maybe this is one of those “ _should anything ever happen to me, go to location x”_ type deals. Crazier things have happened, especially when it comes to Neal Caffrey.

He takes the paper flower over to the coffee table, carrying it in a way that’s almost reverent, and sits on the couch to peer at it. After a long moment of hesitation, blood thrumming in his ears, he begins to gently fold back the intricate creases in the flimsy paper. It takes him a good 15 minutes, but he finally gets to the point where he has a crinkled rectangle instead of a flower.

It’s a receipt for Chinese takeout, dated way back when he and Neal were at the prime of their partnership – most likely a working dinner. Neal probably got bored looking over whatever case they were working, folded the flower as a way to tame his restless hands. How it ended up in the drawer is anyone’s guess. Maybe El picked it up, thought it was pretty, put it aside. It isn’t a message from Neal – it likely wasn’t even hidden for Peter to find. He searches and searches, but the closest thing to a hidden message he can see on the paper is a faded coupon for free egg rolls, on the back.

Peter stares at the receipt for a moment, crestfallen – then, very slowly, he can feel a smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth. Then, a smile. Then, a grin. Suddenly, he’s laughing.

His first thought, of course, is what Neal would say if he were here. Peter imagines that the younger man would find the entire thing hilarious – would be joking about it for months. Hell, Neal would probably start leaving other origami flowers around the house, just to mess with Peter’s mind.

Peter doubles over on the couch, so wracked with laughter that he can hardly breathe, making enough of a ruckus that even Satchmo has woken up, is peering at him curiously from his dog bed. Peter has the distant thought that maybe he’s finally gone nuts – sitting here in an empty house, laughing maniacally over a three-year-old takeout receipt.

Then he can feel tears running down his face – tears of laughter, he thinks, until he realizes that he’s not laughing anymore, he’s sobbing. Laughing and sobbing, maybe, and then just outright bawling, for the first time in years. The immense grief and tension and suppression of the past year are suddenly trying to make a hasty exit all at once, and it’s so overwhelming that the world drops away for a while.

Only one thought remains, the thought that he’s refused to entertain or believe until now: That Neal is dead, gone forever, and not coming back. All the blame and anger and guilt in the world isn’t going to change that fact. There are no loopholes or secret messages that will change that fact. Nothing will ever change that fact.

He cries himself into a state of exhaustion and falls asleep, right there on the couch – sleeps for 12 hours or so, dreams for what feels like the entire time. When he wakes, there’s a smile on his face, and it doesn’t fade as quickly as it used to.

 

*

 

It’s two more years – three years post-crash – before Peter can bring himself to return to Vermont. He still refuses to fly there; he isn’t much of a fan of flying in general, these days, thanks to his obsessive research into all the things that can go wrong at altitude.

Still, El insists – they’ve built some memorial out there in the forest, apparently, and she thinks it would be good for them (good for him) to go visit it. So they drive up together one weekend, just before summer hits.

He and El walk hand-in-hand through the woods. Peter can feel his palms growing clammier against hers, the closer they get to the site. When they get there, however, he’s surprised at what he sees – at how different it looks from the last time he stood here.

There’s still a large clearing in the forest, where the plane hit the trees – but the investigators cleared the debris, and it seems like the Forest Service must have sent guys out here to clear the broken trees or something, because the ground looks level and clean and soft. The floor of the clearing is covered in spring growth – bright green grass, clumps of wildflowers, an occasional branch or seed pod dropped from the trees above. There are birds singing; a chipmunk darts through Peter’s peripheral vision. He takes a deep breath, exhaling slowly – no traces of the smell that’s haunted him for years; just mossy earth and a vaguely floral scent.

In the center of the clearing is an unassuming monument, made out of some kind of unfinished white stone. When he and El get closer to it, he can see that it has all the names of the passengers and crew engraved on it, and a dedication. It’s nice – tasteful. Not the overdone shrine that he feared it would be. He notes, with satisfaction, that Neal is listed as “ _Mr Neal Caffrey_ ”, and not under his alias - though Peter wonders, for the umpteenth time, whether “Neal Caffrey” was an alias as well. Mozzie, it seems, is eternally memorialized as _Mr Robert Furlow_. Peter supposes that engraving a name like “Mozzie” may have undercut the seriousness of the tribute; he tries to take comfort in the fact that Mozzie would be satisfied that he managed to stay out of "the system”, right until the end.

Elizabeth’s eyes grow shiny as she reads the memorial – she steps forward, resting the bouquet of flowers that they’ve brought upon it, and then steps back to squeeze Peter’s hand. He squeezes back.

After a few more moments of silence Elizabeth sighs and kisses him on the cheek; then wanders off to explore the clearing, seemingly entranced by its beauty. Peter looks skyward, around at the trees, and then back at Neal’s name, etched in stone.

After a long moment, he gives the monument a friendly smirk – as though it were Neal standing in front of him, instead of a gravestone – and shrugs.

 “I miss you, buddy.”

 Peter sighs, nods, and then turns –  walks away, to join his wife. 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
